By using the ATLAS detector, observations have been made of a centrality-dependent dijet asymmetry in the collisions of lead ions at the Large Hadron Collider. In a sample of lead-lead events with a per-nucleon center of mass energy of 2.76 TeV, selected with a minimum bias trigger, jets are reconstructed in fine-grained, longitudinally segmented electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters. The transverse energies of dijets in opposite hemispheres are observed to become systematically more unbalanced with increasing event centrality leading to a large number of events which contain highly asymmetric dijets. This is the first observation of an enhancement of events with such large dijet asymmetries, not observed in proton-proton collisions, which may point to an interpretation in terms of strong jet energy loss in a hot, dense medium.

This article documents the performance of the ATLAS muon identification and reconstruction using the LHC dataset recorded at  TeV in 2015. Using a large sample of and decays from 3.2 fb of pp collision data, measurements of the reconstruction efficiency, as well as of the momentum scale and resolution, are presented and compared to Monte Carlo simulations. The reconstruction efficiency is measured to be close to over most of the covered phase space ( and  GeV). The isolation efficiency varies between 93 and depending on the selection applied and on the momentum of the muon. Both efficiencies are well reproduced in simulation. In the central region of the detector, the momentum resolution is measured to be () for muons from () decays, and the momentum scale is known with an uncertainty of . In the region , the resolution for muons from decays is while the precision of the momentum scale for low- muons from decays is about .

A search is conducted for new resonant and non-resonant high-mass phenomena in dielectron and dimuon final states. The search uses 36.1 fb −1 of proton-proton collision data, collected at √ s = 13 TeV by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC in 2015 and 2016. No significant deviation from the Standard Model prediction is observed. Upper limits at 95% credibility level are set on the cross-section times branching ratio for resonances decaying into dileptons, which are converted to lower limits on the resonance mass, up to 4.1 TeV for the E 6 -motivated Z χ . Lower limits on the qq contact interaction scale are set between 2.4 TeV and 40 TeV, depending on the model. Conclusion 21A Dilepton invariant mass tables 22The ATLAS collaboration 44 IntroductionThis article presents a search for resonant and non-resonant new phenomena, based on the analysis of dilepton final states (ee and µµ) in proton-proton (pp) collisions with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) operating at √ s = 13 TeV. The data set was collected during 2015 and 2016, and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb −1 . In the search for new physics carried out at hadron colliders, the study of -1 - JHEP10(2017)182dilepton final states provides excellent sensitivity to a large variety of phenomena. This experimental signature benefits from a fully reconstructed final state, high signal-selection efficiencies and relatively small, well-understood backgrounds, representing a powerful test for a wide range of theories beyond the Standard Model (SM).Models with extended gauge groups often feature additional U(1) symmetries with corresponding heavy spin-1 bosons. These bosons, generally referred to as Z , would manifest as a narrow resonance through its decay, in the dilepton mass spectrum. Among these models are those inspired by Grand Unified Theories, which are motivated by gauge unification or a restoration of the left-right symmetry violated by the weak interaction. Examples considered in this article include the Z bosons of the E 6 -motivated [1,2] theories as well as Minimal models [3]. The Sequential Standard Model (SSM) [2] is also considered due to its inherent simplicity and usefulness as a benchmark model. The SSM manifests a Z SSM boson with couplings to fermions equal to those of the SM Z boson.The most sensitive previous searches for a Z boson decaying into the dilepton final state were carried out by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations [4,5]. Using 3.2 fb −1 of pp collision data at √ s = 13 TeV collected in 2015, ATLAS set a lower exclusion limit at 95% credibility level (CL) on the Z SSM pole mass of 3.4 TeV for the combined ee and µµ channels. Similar limits were set by CMS using the 2015 data sample.This search is also sensitive to a series of other models that predict the presence of narrow dilepton resonances. These models include the Randall-Sundrum (RS) model [6] with a warped extra dimension giving rise to spin-2 graviton excitations, the quantum black-hole model [7], the Z * model [8], and the minimal wal...

Studies of the spin and parity quantum numbers of the Higgs boson are presented, based on proton–proton collision data collected by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. The Standard Model spin–parity JP=0+JP=0+ hypothesis is compared with alternative hypotheses using the Higgs boson decays H→γγH→γγ, H→ZZ⁎→4ℓH→ZZ⁎→4ℓ and H→WW⁎→ℓνℓνH→WW⁎→ℓνℓν, as well as the combination of these channels. The analysed dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 20.7 fb−1 collected at a centre-of-mass energy of √s=8TeV. For the H→ZZ⁎→4ℓH→ZZ⁎→4ℓ decay mode the dataset corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb−1 collected at √s=7TeV is included. The data are compatible with the Standard Model JP=0+JP=0+ quantum numbers for the Higgs boson, whereas all alternative hypotheses studied in this Letter, namely some specific JP=0−,1+,1−,2+JP=0−,1+,1−,2+ models, are excluded at confidence levels above 97.8%. This exclusion holds independently of the assumptions on the coupling strengths to the Standard Model particles and in the case of the JP=2+JP=2+ model, of the relative fractions of gluon-fusion and quark–antiquark production of the spin-2 particle. The data thus provide evidence for the spin-0 nature of the Higgs boson, with positive parity being strongly preferre

Studies of the spin, parity and tensor couplings of the Higgs boson in the , and decay processes at the LHC are presented. The investigations are based on of pp collision data collected by the ATLAS experiment at  TeV and  TeV. The Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson hypothesis, corresponding to the quantum numbers , is tested against several alternative spin scenarios, including non-SM spin-0 and spin-2 models with universal and non-universal couplings to fermions and vector bosons. All tested alternative models are excluded in favour of the SM Higgs boson hypothesis at more than 99.9 % confidence level. Using the and decays, the tensor structure of the interaction between the spin-0 boson and the SM vector bosons is also investigated. The observed distributions of variables sensitive to the non-SM tensor couplings are compatible with the SM predictions and constraints on the non-SM couplings are derived.